The Stolen Story
in type with this benevolent old gentleman's quotation marks about it. Besides, the president had been stirred to indigestion as it was, and deserved to be spared further discomfort out of gratitude. For from him Woods had obtained a succinct statement of facts—which he was now rapidly writing down, word for word, by a Broadway corner lamp-post—a perfect crowbar of a statement it was, with which Billy could prod and pry out the whole of the story, and with out which he could have done nothing. The story was practically secured now. The rest was only a matter of time, for Woods.
There were nearly a dozen persons, up and down town, of various walks of life and degrees of importance that he had to see, and it was now three o'clock. He had not heard what McCarthy said about taking two days to the story, and would not have done so if he had. He gulped a cup of coffee and a sandwich, stepped into a cigar-store, turned the pages of the directory over rapidly several times and then started out.
At ten o'clock that evening he sighed and said, "Well, that's the last. That covers
22
